


The Pillow Thief

by vgersix



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Chess, Human Courtship is Weird, Humor, M/M, Non-sexual, Pranks and Practical Jokes, failing at flirting, implied cuddling, lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 01:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6931624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vgersix/pseuds/vgersix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is perfectly 100% logical to sleep with seven big fluffy pillows on your bed, absolutely. But when those pillows start disappearing from Spock's bed one by one... the list of likely suspects is fairly short. How exactly does one accuse their captain of such an absurd act? :[</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pillow Thief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plaidshirtjimkirk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plaidshirtjimkirk/gifts).



Another pillow was missing.

Spock tugged at the edge of the coverlet, smoothing the surface flat, and counted again. Yes, there was no mistaking it, he was down to three. At mission’s inception, he had begun with seven. Seven big fluffy pillows arranged over the head and along the adjacent wall of his otherwise rigid, regulation issue mattress, to which he had wasted no time in adding a few… reasonable comforts.

The best possible sleep was beneficial for increased proficiency ratings, after all, so it was only logical to improve the quality of one’s rest where one could. Hence the seven big fluffy pillows and silk sheets that made up the warm cocoon of his bed into which he nightly encapsulated himself at a prompt 2300 hours. He awoke every morning at 0700 sharp, properly rested and prepared to begin his day, thanks to the extra adornments and comforts and the seven big fluffy pillows.

Only it was no longer seven. The number of pillows had now dwindled to three. And three pillows were simply not as beneficial as seven. He wanted to know what had become of the missing four. Where could they have gone? They had been disappearing one by one over a period of nearly three weeks. The incident suggested either a security leak, or that someone within the crew was attempting to play a practical joke on him. As the likelihood of an outside entity infiltrating the _Enterprise_ simply to make off with throw pillows belonging to the ship’s first officer seemed highly unlikely, Spock had yet to report the occurrence to anyone. It was an intriguing mystery, but not one that Spock had any time to address at the moment. He was due on the bridge.

 

*

 

Ship’s night had fallen again, and the dimly lit passageways leading Spock toward his quarters further encouraged his already heavy eyelids to weigh even heavier as he gratefully approached his doorway. Another late night of work in the science labs had kept him up past his regular bedtime for the third time this week. The chronometer now read half past 2400 hours, and he mentally calculated the compounding lack of sleep he was quickly accruing over the course of the work week.

He momentarily considered foregoing meditation in order to fall immediately into bed, but passed through the doorway to his sitting room and, without pause, went immediately to the meditation alcove in his bedroom, lighting the candle and slumping to his knees without hesitation. The day he began skipping this activity for the sake of sleep was the day he began to falter in his most crucial practices. His dedication to habit could not allow it.  

 

-

 

As the remnants of Spock’s meditative state fell away, and his mind returned to full awareness, his gaze fell on the dimly lit bed. A single remaining pillow lay in its proper place on the coverlet.

“One?” he exclaimed under his breath. This morning there had been three. Never had two pillows disappeared at the same time. He glanced to the floor, thinking one of them must have fallen from the bed. But no. This thief was growing more daring indeed, to take two pillows at once.

Who would do this? Who had the means? Who had access to his quarters without his permission?

There were several possible answers, none of which made him comfortable. Doctor McCoy, as chief medical officer on the _Enterprise_ , had the ability to override door security in case of emergencies, so he _could_ have done it. Spock did not truly suspect him, however. He could see no motive for the doctor. While McCoy sometimes enjoyed the very human practice of playing a practical joke, Spock did not think it in his nature to come all the way up to Spock’s own quarters, multiple times over a period of weeks, simply to play such a trick.

Then there was Engineer Scott. As the keeper of all maintenance codes on the ship, he too had the capability of entering any room on the _Enterprise_ as he wished. But the engineer was typically respectful of privacy, and seemed less likely even than McCoy. Then there were various heads of security and others who could have conceivably done it, though each seemed less likely than the last.

Earnestly, there was only one possible culprit who held Spock’s true suspicion. Though Spock could hardly confront him on the matter without some kind of evidence. He would simply have to continue to bide his time.

He rose, prepared for bed, and did his best to achieve optimal sleep – despite his now dwindling pillow collection. If he clutched the remaining one perhaps a bit more tightly than usual, it was only logical.

 

*

 

The next evening, Spock arrived promptly to the captain’s quarters at 1900 hours for their weekly chess match.

“Good evening, Captain,” he said, nodding in greeting as he went to the small table where the chess set was already arranged in preparation for their game.

“Hi, Spock,” Jim called from the desk, where he was tapping in one last command. He closed the screen and met Spock at the chess table, taking his seat with a smile. “I hope you’re prepared for a loss; I’m feeling pretty on my game tonight.”

“Feeling has little to do with chess strategy, Captain. I too am prepared to win.”

Jim pouted, squinting his eyes in an expression of mock anger with which Spock was familiar. “Bring it on, Mister.”

They proceeded through their customary first moves, falling immediately into a companionable silence as they worked through their individual, no doubt quite different, strategies. It was not until the third round of play that Spock happened to glance over Jim’s shoulder where his gaze fell upon a familiar red poof of fabric propped against the wall leading into the captain’s sleeping alcove.

It was unmistakably one of his pillows.

Now, he wondered, how to confront the now quite obvious fact that Jim had been gradually robbing him of his bedding? What an absurd accusation to make? And yet, the evidence was irrefutable. There it was. On the floor. As if it belonged there.

Spock decided that this was a situation that called for no words at all. As Jim huddled over the chessboard, one hand cupped under his chin while he worked out his next move, Spock simply stood from his chair and walked over to where the pillow lay. He knelt to pick it up, pressed its fluff between his hands, and turned to face the open door leading into the captain’s sleeping alcove. There they were, every single one of them – neatly arrayed across Jim’s bed – the other five pillows. They clashed greatly with the captain’s other bedding – the regulation bright orange houndstooth mattress, the rough fabric of the matching orange pillow, flat and unwelcoming in comparison to the plush mahogany ones belonging to Spock – which were overstuffed and covered in the softest velvet available on Vulcan.

“Captain… I…” he couldn’t think of anything more substantive to say. Now that his suspicions were confirmed, he found himself utterly at a loss. Why? Why would Jim do this?

“Your move, Spock,” Jim called, not having bothered to look up from the chess board.

“I…” Spock grasped for the correct words to say.

“Come on, it’s your go.” Jim huffed, leaning back in his chair but still facing the opposite direction.

Spock sighed, pacing back to his seat at the chess table. He sat, dropped the pillow rather blatantly onto his lap, and proceeded to move his queen into position for a coordinated attack on Jim’s bishop.

The captain still did not appear to have noticed the evidence staring him in the face. He was busy pressing one finger against pursed lips as he took in the board. Spock was glaring pointedly in his direction, one eyebrow raised, the pillow quite obviously resting on his knees.

However, it seemed Jim was too distracted to notice. His expression remained very serious – as if the game was all-consuming – until finally, a ripple of amusement spread across his face, his cheeks suddenly flushed red, and his hands rose to cover his face as he fell into peals of laughter.

“ _You_ have been doing this,” Spock said in a dull monotone. Jim’s hunched shoulders bounced with silent laughter as he continued to hide his face. “You, Captain,” Spock continued. “For _weeks_ , you have been doing this.”

Jim leaned back in his chair, his hands falling way to grip the armrests and he devolved into cackling laughter. Tears streamed from his eyes. He stood up, went to the wall, and leaned against it as if for purchase as he continued to choke with fits of the giggles.

“Oh my god, if you could see the look on your face!” he finally managed to say. “You look so pissed! Oh my god, Spock… I’m dying!” He coughed, pressing a closed fist to his face as another round of laughter overtook him.

Spock sighed, waiting patiently for Jim to regain some level of composure.

“I assume you consider this… practical joke to have been successful, then?” Spock asked, watching complacently as Jim wiped the tears from his cheeks and returned to his chair.

 _How strange,_ he thought, _that humans often cry in equal amounts during moments of pleasure as well as sadness. Stranger still when they do not begrudge being observed during such outbursts_.

Jim sighed, giving one last chuckle before finally resting his elbows on the table and looking up to meet Spock’s eyes with an amused glimmer in his own.

“You’re not really mad, are you?” he asked with a smile.

Spock looked away, pursing his lips in mild annoyance. “I am not mad,” he said in contrast to the physical cues he knew he must be giving away. “I simply do not… why would you do this? Why take them?”

“I was hoping you’d eventually notice…” Jim said, still grinning. “But yesterday I was starting to get impatient so I took a couple extra.”

“I did indeed notice,” Spock huffed, “I noticed immediately, of course. They are my belongings; my things. How could I not notice when they were missi—“ He stopped himself. He was sounding more emotional with every word, and he paused to take a breath.

Jim was looking up at him with an incredulous expression; a mixture of amusement and concern. He chuckled, “Well then why didn’t you come looking for it that first night? Surely you must have known it was me…” he laughed, shrugging as if it should have been obvious.

“I…” Spock said. “I thought perhaps… There were multiple possibilities. Doctor McCoy for example…”

Jim hugged himself and nearly fell from his chair laughing anew. “McCoy!? You thought _Bones_ was stealing your pillows?”

“Well, there was also Engineer Scott. He is the only other person with access…”

Now Jim really did crumple from his chair. He sank to the floor, pounding the bulkhead with one fist and rolling over onto his back, tears streaming down his face in mirth again. Spock struggled against every impulse within him to roll his eyes, instead shifting the pillow awkwardly between his hands, sighing with resignation.

“Scotty?!” Jim howled. “Why would Scotty take them?” he managed to ask between bouts of the giggles.

Spock sighed, standing from his chair and walking to the other side of the table to glare at Jim where he now lay breathlessly gasping on the floor.

“I do not know, Jim. However, I imagined that either of them had just as much motivation for such a bizarre and unnecessary act as did you. And while naturally you seemed the most obvious culprit due to your proximity and access to my quarters, I did not wish to unfairly suspect—”

“My god, you’re hopeless,” Jim muttered, quirking an eyebrow up at Spock, and chuckling again as he rolled back and forth against the bulkhead.

Spock frowned in confusion. “Hopeless?”

“Yes,” Jim huffed as he heaved himself up off the floor and stood next to Spock, tugging his uniform shirt back into place. “I’m running out of subtle ways to flirt with you. I was hoping you’d catch on at some point, but apparently it’s time for more drastic measures.”

Before Spock could formulate any kind of response to _that_ , Jim leaned in, quickly pressing a kiss to his cheek.

Jim pulled away just as quickly, still grinning. Spock could feel the heat rising to his face and had to assume his cheeks were becoming as green as Jim’s were pink.

“I… what?” Spock said, in perhaps his least eloquent moment ever.

“It was stupid, I know…” Jim shrugged. “I went over there that night after we sat up late working on reports and I realized I’d hung on to one of your data PADDs on accident. It was late, maybe 0300? I thought for sure you’d be there and I’d just leave it on your desk, but…”

He paused, looking at Spock for some kind of reaction. Spock nodded, “Yes, go on.”

Jim let out a breath he’d apparently been holding. “Well, I don’t know where you’d gone, but you weren’t there. And it just struck me on a whim that it’d be funny to see if you noticed. I mean, the way they were all lined up in a perfect little row on your bed… It was just so _you_. But the fact that you had them in the first place was so… _not_ you. At least, not the _you_ you want the world to see most of the time. I don’t know, I’m not making sense.”

“I believe you mentioned something in regard to… flirtation?” Spock squinted. “Could you elaborate on that?”

Jim hid a chuckle behind his hand and nodded. “Oh, yeah.” He tugged on his shirt and looked anywhere but at Spock. “About that. Uh… I guess I thought it’d be funny…”

“You said that, yes.” Spock nodded.

Jim raised his hands in exasperation. “I thought when you came back you’d come looking for the stupid pillow and I was in here and it was really late and… Jesus, Spock I don’t know! It was just a stupid excuse to get you back in here, cause you’d just been here but then you were gone and I wanted you to have some excuse to come back and it’s not exactly normal to invite a guy over for a game of chess at 4 o’clock in the morning, okay?”

This came forth as one continuous sentence that left the captain standing exhausted, blushing bright red and gasping.

“But I did not come back.”

“No, you didn’t.” Jim kicked a non-existent speck of dust on the floor. “And you didn’t come over the next time either, or the next, or the next. So tonight I just laid the things out for all to see and I figured, whatever. It’d come out one way or another, and here we are. And now the whole thing just seems stupid. Like when the punchline on a joke takes too long.”

Spock took a breath, sighing it out as he pondered on all of this. “I have never fully understood human forms of humor, and therefore a belated punchline would be unlikely to have a great effect on me, in any case.”

Jim huffed. “Yeah, no shit.”

“Captain, are you saying that you did all of this as some sort of… bizarre courtship ritual?”

Jim stuck his hands in his pockets, scuffing his shoe on the carpet again. “I guess so.”

“Because you enjoy my company? And you desired more of it?”

Jim shrugged, staring at the floor. “Yeah.”

Spock paused to reflect on the mental gymnastics required to make such a connection.

“Captain, you might simply have said as much. I am not opposed to such an arrangement. I also enjoy your company on a purely personal level.”

Jim immediately perked up. “Yeah?”

“Of course.”

Jim stepped closer, giving Spock a familiar look that Spock now finally recognized for what it was: suggestive. Ah, human courtship was indeed subtle.

“Well, Captain. Now that we understand one another, shall we continue our chess match?” Spock said, clasping his hands politely behind his back.

“No, we absolutely shall not,” Jim frowned.

“Oh?”

“Not when I’ve got a perfectly fine pile of pillows all ready to cuddle you in. Chess can wait.”

  _Oh._

\-- END --

**Author's Note:**

> Lol this may be the fluffiest, silliest thing I've written about these two. OH WELL. It made me giggle and I hope it did you too. COMMENCE THE CUDDLING. XD
> 
> Gifted to Plaid because finishing this just so happened to correspond with her birthday! <3
> 
> follow me on tumblr: [k/s blog](http://spirkian.tumblr.com/) | [personal blog](http://vgersix.tumblr.com/) | [email me](mailto:vgersixwrites@gmail.com)


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